In the end, Evelyn wasn’t able to locate her horse. It was the first time a horse of hers had wandered off, and it couldn’t have picked a worse time. Although it pained her to leave him behind, it couldn’t be helped. The children’s safety was priority, after all, and she could always come back to look for him after she got them home. So instead, she opted to carry Fin and Fig herself, one on each shoulder, as they gave her directions through the forest.

With them guiding her, they quickly came to what had to be the shabbiest looking goblin village that Evelyn had ever seen. An ordinary goblin village is a very tidy collection of tiny buildings encircled by a simple wooden wall - not all that different from a human village except in terms of size and the goblins’ tendency to decorate their buildings with elaborate carvings.

By comparison, this place seemed more like a camp than a proper village. It was a ramshackle collection of tents and lean-tos so hastily erected that it seemed likely to blow away with a single gust of wind. Even if they had only set up recently, she still would have expected to see some signs of proper construction, or at least of clearing the trees.

Fortunately, it seemed that their security was sturdier than their buildings, as they were greeted by guards as soon as they came into view. The boys hopped down from Evelyn’s shoulders and ran to meet the trio of goblins who were advancing with spears raised, and pulled them into a hushed conversation, motioning for Evelyn to stay where she was. Like an obedient old hunting dog, she stopped and watched from a short distance away.

To the experienced adventurer’s eyes, the knobbly helmets that the guards wore appeared to have been made from the skulls of pachlyns, aggressive creatures renowned for their thick-headedness and fierce temperament. Few dared to hunt pachlyns, fewer still survived. The fact that these goblins had an evidently abundant supply of their skulls spoke to their skill, making their current living situation all the more puzzling.

“Are you alright?” asked a guard as the brothers approached. She kept a watchful eye on the human behind the pair as she looked them up and down.

Fin knew that Minz, the guard, really was concerned for their welfare, but he also knew that what she wanted to ask more than anything was, ‘Why the hell did you bring a human here?’

But Fig, as always, beat him to the punch, and before he had a chance to open his mouth, exclaimed, “We’re fine! We found this old human wandering around the forest! She’s gonna stay here from now on!”

“It’s okay!” Fin rushed, seeing the alarm being raised in the guards’ eyes. “She’s really nice; she gave us jerky! And she’s all alone. She’s gonna be fed to dogs if we don’t help her!”

Fin and Fig had come to a silent agreement not to mention the spider that had almost killed them. Humans were frightening enough even when they weren’t able to single-handedly take down a beast like that. If they wanted to help Evelyn, they had to present her as a harmless old lady, abandoned by her village. The children didn’t seem to realize that no goblin in their right mind would believe that any human with such a warrior-like appearance was harmless, regardless of her age. To them, who had never seen a real human before, this was just what they all looked like.

Minz looked skeptically between the brothers and the human. She took a few steps forward, spear at the ready, and commanded, “State your purpose here!”

“Purpose?” Evelyn tugged thoughtfully at her granny hairs. “Well, truth be told… I’m a bit lost. In a pickle too, since my horse ran off with my supplies.”

Minz hesitated for a moment, taking in the rugged appearance of the human in front of her, before replying, “You’ll have to relinquish your weapons if you intend to enter the village.”

Evelyn weighed her choices. On the one hand, it would be easy to backtrack her way to where she had last seen Glaive. Being such a massive horse, he left a clear trail wherever he went, so she should be able to find him again without too much difficulty. The only reason she hadn’t done so earlier was simple: her priority had been getting the kids home safe. But if Evelyn planned on surviving long enough to fix up that cabin, she would need the supplies she had packed into his saddle bags.

On the other hand, she should have already found the cabin by now. If she didn’t get directions, she could very well be wandering around this forest until she died of old age, or more likely ran out of supplies. And goblins were known to be resourceful craftsmen, which could be a boon to her later. Besides, there was always the chance that there were more giant trapdoor spiders or some other strange monsters in the vicinity that had nabbed Glaive while she had been rescuing the children. It couldn’t hurt to introduce herself at the very least, and she could go after Glaive after she got directions.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Her mind made up, she fixed her eyes on Minz, the goblin warrior. “I’ll get them back when I leave, right?”

“Of course,” she answered, “we’re not thieves.”

Evelyn, who was accustomed to carrying around a small arsenal, felt about a hundred pounds lighter after handing over her sword, daggers, handaxe, and crossbow. She might have actually been a hundred pounds lighter, for all she knew. It was an unnerving sensation.

“You’ll have to meet with the village council. They’re the ones who decide whether or not you stay.” Minz spoke over her shoulder as she led the small entourage.

Their destination was quite close: a hide tent strung between two sturdy trees with grasses and vines woven together into a mat to cover the bare earth underneath. From what she could see, it seemed to be the nicest tent in the village. Inside, however, the heat was almost unbearable, trapped by the thick hide. Five elderly goblins sat on the floor, damp with sweat, and watched as the outsider entered.

Evelyn sat across from the council with her legs crossed. “Your village is shabby,” she observed as she examined the barren interior of the tent.

The council frowned in unison. “This location is temporary,” replied Klum, who had been introduced as the leader of the council.

“We haven’t even started building yet,” another grumbled.

Evelyn nodded. “It’s a bad location for a village.”

She wasn’t wrong. There was no stream or spring nearby that she could see, meaning they would have to send people outside the village for fresh water and fish. The only natural defense it seemed to have were the trees themselves and the dense underbrush, neither of which would be of any use against the native creatures of the forest. This so-called village wasn’t even in a clearing; if they wanted to build anything larger than these lean-tos they would have to deal with the arduous task of cutting down these ancient trees, each one at least as wide across as five goblins, then also clearing the stumps. There was simply no benefit to setting up here.

The council knew that she wasn’t wrong, but they resented her for saying it.

Fin and Fig were watching near the tent’s entrance as their new friend made her disastrous entrance. “We have to do something,” Fin whispered. “They’re gonna kick her out at this rate, for sure!”

Sensing the increasingly hostile attitude of the council members, Fig decided on a bold strategy. He rushed in, darting past Minz to where Evelyn was sitting and plopped down on her lap, determined to demonstrate her docile nature. “The human needs a place to stay!” he declared, sitting rigidly on her knee.

Although the pair had decided to trust the adventurer who saved their lives, this wasn’t enough to quell their long-held fear of humans. Fin watched from the entrance with bated breath as his brother sat on the human they had met less than an hour ago.

Evelyn herself was too stunned by the sudden and bizarre entrance of the goblin child to respond intelligently, but she managed a brief, “Yep.”

Klum rubbed the bridge of his nose as he sighed, pushing loose folds of wizened skin to and fro. “We don’t have the resources to take in lodgers,” he told the child, “especially humans! It’s impossible, she will have to be on her way. Of course, we wish her the best of luck in –”

“She’s not a lodger!” Having overcome his hesitation, Fin rushed in and, following Fig’s lead, took up position on Evelyn’s other knee. “We’re adopting her, and that makes her family! So you can’t turn her away!”

For the first time since the start of her career, the seasoned adventurer found herself utterly dumbfounded. She was certain that she had only come to ask for directions, how was she now being adopted by children barely taller than her boots?

“It doesn’t work that way!” protested Klum. “You can’t –”

“Says who?!” Fig was on his feet now as he shouted at the council. “That’s not a real rule!”

“Please don’t turn away grandma Lyn,” Fin whined.

‘Grandma Lyn?’ When did I become grandma Lyn? Evelyn wondered. She looked down at Fin in bewilderment, only then noticing that he had begun to cry.

The council leader, whose face was turning ever deeper shades of green from the frustration of arguing with young children, pointed a crooked finger at Minz, who seemed just as shocked as Evelyn by the sudden turn of events. “Get them out!” he ordered.

Fig dodged the warrior’s hand as she reached for him, sticking his tongue out as he did so. She made to grab Fin next, but the child clung to the adventurer’s armor and refused to let go. The ramshackle tent turned to pandemonium as the guard struggled with rounding up the two rowdy children.

Evelyn, meanwhile, could do no more than sit and smile in the midst of the chaos. She had been adopted. The great adventurer, Evelyn the Fierce, who had traveled the world after running away from an orphanage, who had never had a family or a home to call her own, had now been adopted. She had never imagined her dream might finally come true so late in life and in the most unlikely of places. ‘Grandma Lyn.’ She liked the sound of that.